A Santa Thought.

A Santa Thought.

As I was sitting on a giant red couch, with my Mrs. Claus. Who, in real life, has a girlfriend, not a boyfriend; which I am not against at all, and fully support. I think... Look at me, look at her, look at where we are. When I was a little boy, who's lap did I sit on and tell my wish list too. Was he a jolly old man, or did he have a story just like the rest of us, just like me and my Mrs. Claus. What about those santas that do it professionally. For example the Macy's Day Parade Santa, the most well known santa in the United States, is this just a holiday job for him, or does that one appearance make his whole  annual income? Or does he just volunteer to be santa that night and is a bar tender, or a carpenter, or a photographer like myself the rest of the year. Have you personally read some of the theories of where "Santa" came from back in history? Did he just appear, in modern day and the jolly old man who brings gifts? There are many theories out there and if your not doing anything read a few, they are pretty funny. My favorite is where the flying reindeer come from! Well just a quick thought as I am editing some photos, hope you all enjoy your evening, and get ready to hear about my new years eve experiences soon!

In a Field.

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” 

‎"In a field, where we can scream. 

Get away with almost anything. Yeah, every now and then you gotta raise a little hell. 

Hope we get lucky and stay out of jail"

A few quotes that have appeared in my life recently, I thought I would share with you as I apologize. I look back thru these past months and see all of these amazing experiences that I have had, yet have not shared with you all. I hope you can accept my apology and see that I have not forgotten about this blog completely. I am here making it my new goal to stay up to date with this blog yet again, so I hope you can do me the favor and keep reading it, as I hope you enjoy hearing about my crazy adventures. 

Can you believe that it has already been over a year that I have been working as a professional photographer a ship sailing in the oceans of Hawaii!? Time sure does fly by and I am loving where I am at in this book of life. As you all know the world was suppose to end the other day, well you know what, i would have been okay with that. I have had such amazing experiences and have really rode the bull of life, I would have not regretted not doing anything or seeing anything. That does not mean that I am satisfied with my life, I plan to keep pushing the limits and finding adventures across the world. I am currently in the state of planning my next vacation that is scheduled for April 7th. I currently have the plan of traveling across the United States going to as many music festivals as possible, letting my mind get lost in the travels, seeing the country that I live in, and meeting people from across the world. Coming home from Thailand I pondered why have I never seen my own country? A country that people from around the world want to visit. So I decided I will take six weeks and explore my own surroundings before I move on to another country. I hope that make sense to everyone else. 

As for my current state of mind, I am preparing to be SANTA. I will be playing the roll of santa in three the the production shows on board as well as a walk behind the scenes, and four hours of little kids sitting on my lap. Am I nervous, heck yeah! Standing on a stage with 2700 people looking at my laugh like an idiot scares me ohhhh so much, but hey its worth it for a good laugh and another bucket list item. Most people in the world can not say they have been santa on a cruise ship! 

Oh last thought before you leave me, I just wanted to show you a little bit of work that my partner Alex Mitroff and I have been working on. As usual I am still in my flip flops out in the sun shooting families crashing in the waves of the Hawaii island. Am I bored with it, maybe a little. But hey even if I complained would you believe me!? 

Happy holidays everyone, I hope you all have a smile on your face. Love you all and hope to see you soon, thanks for taking a little time out of your day to read my blog! 

Time Flys -- Things Break

Aloha yet again from Maui, today I want to start off with just wishing my dad a very happy Fathers Day! One I know your reading this and two your card is lost in the mail by now im sure! So here it is, from thousands miles away, I love you and happy Fathers Day. "The greatest gift I every had came from God, I call him dad"

Now I few more updates on my life, I recently broke my phone. My key ended going threw the screen some how. Well good thing I had insurance is what I thought. Well I was wrong. Living on the sea makes everything so much harder. ATT needed a physcial addresss to ship it to, guess what that does not exist in my life. I am always moving! So they told me I had to buy a phone out right..... after almost some "Bows to the Nose" I ended up buying a new Samsung Tablet and a new phone. Lets just say we must of had some luck on our side, or maybe it was my friends good looks. But things worked out really well for me!

Other thank that another week is done! And I am starting to remember how fast time flys here.... Did you know its only two and a half weeks until FOUTH OF JULY! What how crazy is that! Back on the mainland Fouth of July is one of my most favoirte holidays! Parades, fireworks and the CARNIVAL! ohhh man there are some good memories of fourth of july! Carlosa, Red Cups, FLip Cup, Green Houses, Hot Strings, gold Fish and many friends!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer, I miss you all so much!

something new!

Well here I am trying to keep you up today on my life here in Hawaii.... I am currently sending all of my orders from the previous week. We did fairly well on sales, but there is always room for improvement! The attached file is this weeks top 5 images, I love the one with the tree... if you know anything about me you know that I love trees, owls, and octopuses. So this try really made me happy!! Last week was Roz's last week :( now Im back to sleeping in my own cabin, ugh. But lets keep our fingers crossed that she comes back! I dont know what I would do with out that girl! Since it was her last week we did everything possible to have fun! We saw waterfalls, black sand beaches and nut factories, well actually we just ate lunch at the nut factory, but it was a good lunch!! hahahah We also just chilled on the beach, got tattoos together, and drank some Kava! Wow what a week we lived, and ohhhh boyyy did I spend some money! Was it worth it? Heck yeah! Thats why I am here right.... spend money and have a ball!

This week I am all alone in the studio, my partner Melissa left for vacation! Im a little nervous but I know it will all be okay! I have a lot of great ideas, and I hope I can keep the studio going as good as we had it in the past! I am currently brain storming some promotional ideas, and a self portrait for a thank you card, so look for that in up and coming blogs!

I am currently in the works of planning my next vacation, and since you asked, I only have 97 days left until I leave on the epic adventure! I am trying to plan a trip to Thailand with Mr. Josh Bailey, and also doing a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas with Mr. Preston Dale, Mrs. Jessie Cable, and whoever else wants in! Im a super excited! I think I might be extending this contract a little bit just so I can be on the mainland for Halloween! Which you know what that mean, the epic festival Hallow freakin ween, with the famous SKRILLEX! Ohhhh epic times are approaching!

As you know my best friend Rob has been in the hospital... that kid sure did scare me! Things are getting better! He still has not opened his eyes yet, but he is taking one step at a time! He still needs a lot of thoughts and prayer, so please help him out! He is such an amazing friend of mine and I need all of you to support him as well!

Well hope all is well with everyone! Keep smiling, keep loving, and keep loving life! Ohhhh and do something new this week, no matter where you are, what you are doing, just simply try something new... it can be anything, take a new way to work, call someone random and have a conversation, jump out of an airplane, just do something new and tell me about it! Dont let life pass you by, remember each day, live each day, do it.

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An apology is in order

Hello world,

This blog is going to be an apology letter! I am sincerely sorry that I have not kept up with my blog, but as you will see reading more I have been quite busy, emotional, and changing these last two months! I hope you can accept this apology and we can still be the best of friends!

Now lets get on with it ----

The last time we had talked I had showed you my top five images from the studio, since than things have gone everywhere in every which way. I have thought about leaving the ship and starting new things, I had to be a penguin again, I had to be yelled at people by shooting restaurant shots. The moral of the story is I had to go back to the photo department for three weeks :( BOOOO. I was a really hard time for me because starting this new contract I was so set on working in the studio, being creative and doing my own thing! I had such an expectation for it, and new and great ideas, but once there everything was put on hold. It sucked. It made me reevaluate some of the things in my life currently.

Do I really want to be working the "ship life"? Do I still want to be in Hawaii? Why should I be here, right now in my life? Well those weeks I thought negatively about everything. I hate working on ships, Hawaii sucks, and this is ruining my life! Wow dramatic much?! I would say so! Well what I have come to find is that the "ship life" is a hard place to work in, but if you can stick it out there is a lot of potential. I would say 85% of the people working on ships all have to be there for a reason, everyone is running from something, somebody or recovering from something that dramatically changed their lives. I am not one of those people! So when your walking threw crew areas, its depressing. No one smiles, no one says hello, you can walk in the the lunch area and see three different people asleep with coffee and sugar spread all over the table. Its a hard thing to deal with coming from a small town where everyone is always so happy and loving. Then I started thinking why should I surround myself with these people!? Its making me depressed, then I started thinking Hawaii sucks as a whole. I have done everything there is to do, and Im over it, time to move on.... This all happened in my mind before, I found out some horrible news on Tuesday night.............

Robert Merrill, one of my best friends, a wonderful, kind guy, someone I use to live with, and share many many memories with was in an accident. When I found out the news, my heart sunk, tears came to my eyes, and I was ready to leave the ship at that instant. On top of everything that was going on in my life, this was the topper, this was the sign that I needed to leave this ship. So many thoughts went flying threw my head of what to do, but as my head started to over come my emotions I realized that there is nothing that I could do, besides hope and pray for my friend. Me being there was not going to solve anything, so why drop everything I have and go....

Well its been nine days since that time, and I have really put a lot of thought into my decisions, my future, and my life. During last week my corporate boss was on board doing a annual checkup.... great way to show off right.... but he sure did open my eyes to a whole different way of thinking of large corporations!

All and All I think I will be staying with the cruise life for a little longer. Lets hope everything works out, keep me in your thoughts, and please pray for Rob and his family!

I promise to try and keep this blog up to date from now on!

Love you all.

Address!

Send it :)

Josh Lauding -- photo dept.

Pride of America

PO box 135035

Honolulu HI 96801-5035

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one week update

Well its been a little over a week since arriving back in Hawaii... How does it feel to be back you might ask...... well, it feels like I never left. That term seems to be known as a good thing, but honestly I like change! Its weird to be away from this place for five weeks and to come back and see that not a single new thing as has taken place since me leaving... I think its weird. Now im sure you are all like, well shoot Josh now seems like he is unhappy with living and working in Hawaii, well you are wrong again. I think that it is weird that nothing has changed, its not a bad thing... Just weird. I have been trying to get back to the long work schedules again, and the customer service again, always having to say Aloha when seeing anyone is a hard thing for you to do after coming back from vacation! My new roommate is an odd one, he is from India, and has kind of the same schedual that I do so we are always taking the same breaks, which kind of sucks because I never really get the room to myself, but for now he seems alright! The studio has been going great! Last week we had around ten bookings and hit sales at 110% with a 20 Cent PPD. This week we are trying to double that or at least get 15 bookings. Last night I booked seven clients so we are off to a good start with that! Each week we have to send our top five shots into corporate, this is the image that I have attached to show you all as well! I would love to know what you all think of the images, I am pretty happy with them, I just know we can do better! Other than that the count down is on yet again with 130 days left until vacation! Lots of plans to think about.... Thailand, Australia, Cruises with Preston, and much more... maybe even a Futher concert with some good ol Colorado friends! We will see ;)

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A Road Well Traveled – (WARNING: THIS IS A LONG ONE)

Well its nearing the end of my vacation; If you did’nt know that, I apologize cause that most likely means I did not get to see you! Ughhh, yeah, sorry about that one! But for the most part I have seen many people, many places and many things! And I am here now to tell you about my travels, and brief you on the up and coming adventures of Mr. Josh Laydon!

Leaving the ship was a wonderful feeling! Bags packed, room cleaned, head cleared, I was ready to start my five week adventure….. First stop; Wakiki Beach! With close friends at hand, a round hotel and a ballin’ rental car we went at it in full force! Actually enjoying time on the beach without worrying about work schedules and having no worries in the world the world was our oasis! After a dinner and drinks we had to say good bye to Dustin and Tina – but the night swept in like wildfire, and the lights of the pride of America off in the horizon really started off the night great! After a well needed nap we hit the streets of Wakiki, finding all sorts of adventures! – “why am I so sore?!” could it be all of the dancing in the streets we did?? Ohh yeah that’s right! Good times with good people to start off a great vacation!

Flying out the next day heading straight for fabulous Las Vegas!  Natalia and Justine arriving soon after myself to great me back to the mainland. My wonderful father helped us out with one of the most amazing hotel rooms I have seen and VIP access to the hottest night club in America to see LMFAO perform for Party Rock Mondays – yeah I live the good life! After saying good by to Natalia and Justine I made my home at my parents house! With Bear (my dog) by my side I actually began to relax a little, watching movies and using the internet it was a great feeling! That soon ended with a great concert with Benny Bennasi and I was off yet again!

New arrival… Grand Junction Colorado. Hello home! With some great friends picking me up from the airport and even better friends coming all the way down from Glenwood to pick me up we made that first night one not to forget! New friends and good memories the best ingredients to start off a fabulous Colorado stay!

Now in Glenwood Springs Colorado it was time to live the lifestyle! Volley Ball, friends, parks, and some geocaching made for a great week of adventures with people in my life! Next step into a wonderful Colorado experience – Hello First Fridays! Dance parties, horse races and the epic indoor hot tub party, yet another night for the books!

Now off for some old school loving! Grabbing Matt we head up to Pagosa Springs Colorado, my home town! First stop my wonderful Aunt Joyce, then off to some good old family time and a wonder Easter Breakfast with my bestfriend and her Family! Just happened to be the closing day at Wolf creek ski area, my favorite place in the world, and of course we had to make an appearance! Later that night we had some amazing dance parties with a great band called Ebenizer and the crooked hookers! And yup you guessed it… another night for the books!

Well back to glenwood I head and have some good times in Snowmass Aspen and Vail along the way! Im a geocaching hound these days! I had some really good talks and good experiences with some of my great friends these next couple of days! It was amazing to see everyone again, it amazes me how much changes in six months, I found that this town has lost a lot of the love that it once had! But all is well and seems like everyone is pretty happy! Well it might sound like im starting to slow down… don’t think so we are just getting started! A great friend of mine Leah decided to come down for a concert at the belly up in Aspen Colorado! Renting an amazing Condo with a talking fridge, getting bottle service at the club and feeling like bosses the whole night. I can say it myself we were the most important unimportant people in that place and people knew it! Being approached by the band later made my night! What a great time…. And you know it, it was one for the books! By now your thinking…. This guy have a book that is always writes these night down in… well the answer is yes… your reading it ;)

Two days later im prepping for yet another festival! This one is called holi color festival! So the road trip begins again, heading down to good ol’ Utah! Wow it sure was worth the trip, such an amazing experience, I really learned a lot about the Indian culture and how they celebrate bringing in spring! Covered in Color the five of us had a magical time that I will never forget and hope that one day I will be fortunate to head to the actual festival in India! Who wants to go!? 

With a few days to rest up we are at it yet again, and believe it or not this was my going away party for Colorado! We got FUNKY. The theme was crazy funky dress up, and it was nice to see what people came up with! Lots of games, friends and music was exactly what I needed to send me off from a wonderful town that I love!

Are we done yet you might ask… hahah guess again! On the plane back to Vegas to say my good byes to my parents! Lots of shopping, a show that I watched ten minutes of… that I wont get into to protect the individuals associated with the occurrences of that night; you know who you are, I know your reading this! Man funny stuff right there! Not winning any money this time but there is always the next, keep your fingers crossed blogger world, Im going to the trillion! After a relaxing five days Im back on a plane, to where you might ask…. Once again Colorado! Surprise…. Maybe we should have another going away party… I say yes! Good times yet again I love the life I live! But this is where the road ends, in nine hours I flight out of Aspen Colorado to Denver and then Denver to Hawaii! LETS DO THIS!

As I prepare to board my ship again, I sure have a lot running threw my head! If you did not know I was asked to help run Perspectives Studio! With my partner Melissa McDonald we are heading out in full force! Coming back fresh with new ideas a cleared head and come knowledge than I know what to do with, I am ready to rock this studio! I am extremely excited to start this new chapter in my life, and I know its going to be simply amazing! I have attached some photos done by Melissa so you can see the studio layout. Im sure you folks will here more and more about the progress that we are making in the up and coming months, so I don’t need to tell you too much here, but get excited, its going to be a great five months!

Love you all.

The only way to be happy is to love. If you don't love your life will only flash by.

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ramblings

Well here we go.... I have no idea what this blog will be about its just going to be really random and skattered all over the place to brace yourself!  Hold on here we go....

Have you ever tried to be quiet with a two hands full of plastic bags.... and you need to set the bags down and get things out of the bag.... it near impossible. Just saying.....

Also I named last weeks cruise the gross cruise or the discussing cruise.... let me explain... night one I had this old lady have a little leakage on my white backdrop which then I proceeded to gag as I cleaned it up.... then the next night two people just decided to vomit all over the main lobby by guest services. Amazing right!?  Either that night or a different night when I was walking down the hall this old man literally pooped his pants right in front me me.... and all I can really say to that is thank goodness he was wearing depends.... gross right!? Yeah well that was just a few reasons why I was so grossed out by last week! 

Lets see what else has happened this last week that is worth sharing.... ahhhh well I booked my flight home which is extreemly exciting!!!  I also have my final plans set for my vacation ... and speaking of vacation I am so happy that I get a paid vacation!  Wow I'm lucky.

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awaiting set up

Well I have a few minutes to spare so might as well give you a little update on my life!  My old roommate left Saturday so I got a new one.... his name is Patrick and he is sixty four years old!!!  Crazy right!!  He has been on this ship for five years!  Wow. Other than that last night we had a crew bonfire!  It was amazing and reminded me why I am still on this ship!  with the stars super bright and the waves crashing close I was pretty content to say the least.

One thing that has been on my mind is corporate wants me to extend... which means my vacation would not be in thirty three days... so of course I keep telling them no. But now I keep hearing they can force extend me.... which would mean I have no option. Either I agree or I'm fired. So lets keep our fingers crossed and hope I don't get a force extend!  Ahhhhhh I'm so excited to see the mainland again! 

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Captain Zodiac!!!

A fast paced adventure awaited me without me even knowing this morning!  As I got on the tender to head to kona this morning I got a text asking if I wanted to meet captain zodiac..... no idea what I was getting into I said sure!!  Before long I was on a twenty foot raft with two high speed engines heading sixty miles an hour threw the waves. The model of boat is used by the navy seals to do secret ops. So to say the least this boat goes fast!  It was an amazing ride!  The captain drove to kealakekua bay where we encountered an amazing site!  Whales. We could hear the whales sing threw the boat and watch them take their breath before heading hundreds of feet below us! honestly hearing those whales will be a memory I will never forget. the sound is indescribable and surreal. Also around thirty dolphins were swimming around playing jumping and spinning makes me simply smile. After seeing this we grabbed some snorkel gear and jumped on in. The sound of the whales grew even louder as we swam under the water!  The snorkeling was nice and we found an underwater arch twenty feet under where we swam threw which was a great feeling! After a quick snack away we go again zipping around the ocean!  Seeing some cool sites like where john Wayne married his third wife in the smallest church in the world.... some pretty cool lava tubes... caves.... Michael Jordan's house.... and the end of the world. It was great adventure I got myself into but after all of that here I am ready to head to work yet again ...... ugh. PS sorry I don't have any video footage for you I was not prepared!  Ohhhh and remember don't let your own adventures stop.

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Laying in bed ---

Well you guessed it I'm just laying here in bed not being able to fall asleep which kinda sucks being that I need to get up for work in four hours.... but might as well entertain all of you instead!!!  Actually who even reads these blogs?  Anyone!?  Well I hope someone is. So just a few thoughts on my mind today.... for one it is officially whale season!  Which means there are whales everywhere!!  And I actually got to see one breach the other day which was amazing!!!  Also many dolphins have been encountered on my journeys!  I think dolphins are such amazing creatures.... I wish society could be more like the dolphin population in regards to always enjoying their life, traveling around the world, and simply just having a loving heart!  I think as humans we can learn a lot from dolphins! Just saying!  Hahahaha I know now you think I'm kinda crazy!! 

Also my vacation has been on my mind!!!!  Can you all believe that I only have six weeks left here in Hawaii!!!  Wow what an amazing experiance this has been but man I'm looking forward to my vacation!!!  I fly into Vegas on March 24th and March 26th LMFAO is playing at the cosmopolitan!!!!  I do believe its a must I make it there!!!  Hahaha then Benny benassi poolside on Friday and Paul oakenfold Saturday!!!  Then I'm off to Colorado to spend some time with some of the best friends in the world!!!  Then with any luck I'm headed to indo California to a music festival called Coachella for three days of nonstop dancing!!!!  A well needed time for this Hawaiian kid!!!  then back to Vegas to spend that last week with family before heading back out to Hawaii to start my second rotation!!!  Woohhhh whoooooo!

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Make Some Noise!

So last night the company that I work for hosted a crew party! Let me tell you it was an interesting night .... which is why I'm dropping a few lines about it here! Lets start off with the location. The ship closed off deck 12 aft called the Waikiki bar. This is where the party was held. Make some noise!  With a DJ and ten bartenders the party started off strong! This was an interesting night... it amazed me how different people are between working and their personal  selves on the ship. All of the tattoo and peircing were exposed. All of the the stereo type clothing is revealed like the thug style or the prep clean look or the steezy look. Right down to the creepers. I honesty sat there and wondered where in the world all of these people came from and until you look close you would never know you work with these people everyday!  Well just a quick thought for you. Bye guys.

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A working Vacation!!

Alright for all of you photo nerds, and people who think im just on vacation I am unveiling some of my work that I do on this ship! Ladies and gentlemen the never before seen work of Josh Laydon…. (Now scroll down and look) Pretty cool ehhh? Well let me explain to you what some of it is. We shoot portraiture every night the guests are on board,  each night a n backdrop. We are always shooting the grand staircase though. There is no obligation for anyone to buy the images that we take, thus no sitting fee, its as simply as walking up and smiling for the camera, our job is to make everyone look much better than they do in real life. Hard work…. I know. Hahaha but here are some examples of what I have been shooting. I edited them just for here, but mostly we are shoot to sell, no edit time for the customers.

For some of the nerds out there we are using Bowens lights for the stairs. A simply three light set up, with umbrellas, and one hitting the background. The white backdrop is a four light set up using soft boxes. Volcain is a three light set up with a soft box and an umbrella with a snoot for the background.   Pretty simple stuff, but we are shooting fast to move on to the next customer. We can shoot anywhere from fifteen groups to fifty groups getting close to eight hundred shots. It’s a face paced production mostly. Ready to purchase the next day.

So there it is, now you can see that I am not just on a vacation in the middle of Hawaii all the time sitting on the beach getting my tan on! I hope you all enjoyed seeing these images, and if it was not for you reading and looking at this right now I would be getting a nap, so appreciate ;)

Restaurants on Board the Pride of America!

Hello everyone, I just wanted you to see the different restaurants we have on board the Pride Of America. Dont get to excited for me, I hardly ever get to eat in them, but when I do its always amazing food!! This is just a teaser for what is about to come in this blog. I want to show you some of the work that I have been doing on board so keep posted cause your about to see that I actually work on this ship! also if you guys ever want to know anything, or see anything let me know and I will answer all of your questions on here! Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and I hope to see and hear from you all every soon! Mahalo

 

                                       

 

Hello Mr. Whale

Thought everyone would enjoy this.... this whale is trying to jump over my house!!!  Pretty cool huh!!??

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A random hello!!

Okayy so working 80 or more hours a week has finally caught up to me so I am sorry for not keeping up with

My blog!!!!  But here are some random little adventures that keep me going!!!  First this week I had this pasanger want to take a "special " picture and wanted to know if I could help..... of course with my outstanding Customer service no is never the option!!  So here we go... what did I get myself into today with this 'special ' picture!!!? So I jumped right on in.... this guest wanted to take a picture that says when the stocks go down I'm heading down too... so that he can send it to his lawyer!!!  Hahahha interesting request right. So what better than to throw him in an aloha shirt a lei and a likejacket!!  A quick simple background and boom its done. Not as bad as some other "special pictures " that first came to mind ehhhhhh!?  Hahaha that was interesting!  Well the other picture is some of my crazy friends during a crazy beach adventure.... :) hahah the other picture is Megan and myself during one of our birthday adventures!!! I sure do miss that girl!  Other than that life has been good.... working working but in beautiful Hawaii!!

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My captains response the the ship wreck!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505270_162-57363313/veteran-ship-captain-cruises-safest-vacations/

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Colorado meets Hawaii

Well I found something that really reminds me of home!!  A passenger from a small town in Arizona has brought a piece of Colorado made Hawaiian to the ship. Its a banjo ukalayli (spelling wow)!! Its a very small banjo!!  It is amazing!  This Guy brings it everywhere with him!  And when he plays it his wife does a little hippy dance!!  Ohhhhhh man I love it!!  I sure do miss Colorado and all of its people!!!  76 more days and I will be home :)

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Home away from Home

Here is a quick video that shows where I live!! Im sorry the quality is so bad, but I did not have time to upload on such slow internet the full res version!! 

New Years Eve! – The stolen year!

New Years Eve! – The stolen year!

Alright so you know how every new years eve you begin to wonder if the new year will bring change, and what events it will bring. Well directly following the New Years eve toast I found myself naming the year 2012 the stolen year because of the little incident I got myself into…. But let me start off by just telling you about my night!

Not really looking forward to New Years Eve because I had to work, I went into the night kinda down. It was Saturday so we go a whole new group of people on board today and I shot Emby photos all day long! Not too excited for the new year… but later that night I ended up going to dinner with Kristine and things started to look up! We ate a great dinner at Liberty and after dinner went and explored the NYE decorations! They turned to whole pool deck into one giant dance floor and to top it off emptied out the hot tubs and filled them with ice and champagne! It was really neat to see them testing lights and sound right before the big night! Our agenda that night consisted of multiple DJ’s and bands performing all around the pool deck all night long! At the stroke of midnight we were going to have a firework show and bring in the new year with a bang, free champagne for everyone (INCLUDING CREW!) Well threw out the night I was taking candid photos of all the party people, having a good time, dancing, and getting crazy! At the stroke of midnight we watched the fireworks and all yelled and screamed! This was the new year…. And this is when I made the mistake that could have cost me my job! When I went to go get a glass of champagne my boss said that they ran out… “I heard”

Go grab some more out of one of the hot tubs! So of course I charged down to the main pool deck with Megan and we each grabbed two bottles thinking im sure more crew will still want some champagne! When we returned to the room where they were serving champagne to the crew my boss says, “What are you doing with those, how did you afford that!” At this point im think ohhhh boyyyy what have we done. I tell him we took them out of the hot tub…. He was like NO! You have to pay for those! How in the world did you get those!? I told him we just jumped in the hot tub and grabbed them! Well after a we both realized what a huge misunderstanding we had we decided that since I accomplished stealing champagne that was being guarded we might as well open one up! Everything worked out in the end I did not get in trouble nor did we even have to pay for the champagne that we drank, but wow what a way to bring in the new year huh!! All in all the night was a interesting night, it was wild spending NYE on a ship sailing threw Hawaii. Ohhh and just for the record the bar department alone on our ship, on NEW YEARS EVE, in one night, in six hours of sales made a total of $78,000!!! Crazy right! WOW.

Christmas Talk

Okayyyy, so don’t worry I have not forgotten about you guys!! I have just been so extremely busy it has been so crazy! I want to update you all on a few things so here we go… lets do this!

So for Christmas my parents bought me a new set of fins and sent me snorkel gear! I was super excited because I was getting tired of renting equipment every time I went snorkeling so now I don’t have too!! Now since Christmas is over I did not have to be surfer Santa this week in Kona, so I got the morning off! What a better time to get the morning off than in Kona, I love Kona! Kona is located on the big island and is my favorite place to be! I decided to gather up my gear and some friends and head for a day of snorkeling! We had a nice breakfast on the beach and watched as the mass amounts of passengers flocked off the vessel! We caught a shuttle down to turtle beach which is about a twenty minute drive off of the pier. When we first got there I was not too excited to see the mass amounts of people everywhere, but what can you do…. I can never escape the people!! As fast as I could I just wanted to get in the water and swim as far as I could away from all of these people! The water was so amazing, it was a little too shallow for my taste, but there were some amazing fish! I saw an eel, as well as a huge puffer fish! Now you might be like, why is this beach called turtle beach? Well its because you get to chill with actual sea turtles! There are over twenty sea turtles that live in this area and they are so use to people they just chill in the water and the beach all around these tourists every week! It was an amazing experience and I will look forward to exploring more and more of that beach threw out the next couple months.

Now that Christmas has ended now it has really hit me that I don’t believe that was Christmas. There was no snow, there were no sledding parties, there was no egg nogg. It was such a weird Christmas! But of course I made the best of it! Christmas eve I had some time off in the evening so I made some plans! I went to dinner and East Meets West which is a specialty restaurant aboard. Dinner was great, shared it with my new great friends. After dinner we went to a production show that they had on board, where to open the show was a sweet light show, synced with Christmas music, then there were all types of singers and dancers and even Todd Michael Cook doin his tapp dancing gig. Good times! Directly following the production show was a church service, NCL brought on a pastor to do a Christmas eve service. All in all Christmas eve was pretty fun! Christmas day flew right by, I worked most of the day shooting all 2700 guests aboard the pride of America! Such a crazy life I live!

Now I am starting to figure out how to work my new gopro and do some editing for you all to see my life in my perspective! It has been taking me a while to upload and now edit all of this footage but keep posted cause its coming!!